


A Study in Subterfuge

by PenguinofProse



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Friends with good intentions, Obviously Bellarke are Holmes fans, Sherlock Holmes References, Silly seasonal fluff, canonverse, fluffy fluff, halloween party
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:47:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27288898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenguinofProse/pseuds/PenguinofProse
Summary: In which Miller tries to get Bellamy and Clarke together by throwing a Halloween party and telling some scary stories. And Monroe is a hero, because obviously Monroe is a hero.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake & Nathan Miller, Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin, Clarke Griffin & Nathan Miller
Comments: 16
Kudos: 77





	A Study in Subterfuge

**Author's Note:**

> This is not the most profound or thoroughly edited Halloween fic in the world. But it's some words, about some delinquents having a Halloween party, and Miller trying to get Bellamy and Clarke together, so there's that. And we're just going to pretend these guys had a nice bright future ahead of them after S2 ended where they had time for Halloween parties. Happy reading!
> 
> Content note: reference to drowning.

Miller knows exactly what he's doing.

Contrary to what the Ark adults seem to think, he's not just some loyal fool waving a gun around. He's got a plan – a _strategy_ , even – and he knows what he needs to do to see it through.

He starts by choosing his day. Halloween used to be a festival on Earth before the bombs, he understands. He may have napped through most of Earth Skills, but he used to pay a modicum of attention during the more interesting bits of Earth History classes. He has always liked to learn about the culture of those who have come before.

Next up, he recruits Monty and Jasper. He asks them to make moonshine – strong, and lots of it.

And then he invites his friends to an informal gathering to celebrate the season.

He calls it an _informal gathering_ because he knows there is no way that Bellamy and Clarke will show up to a thing called a _party._ Bellamy is too determined to do his duty, Clarke is too on edge to let loose and have fun. He hasn't seen either of them drink since that first Unity Day. And his plan depends very much on them both being happy to attend.

He likes to think he's subtle in the way he sets up the seating arrangements. He has whispered words with a few key players – Monroe, Harper, and the like. People with the observational and social skills to help him pull this off.

And then he stands back and watches his plan come together.

On the night of Halloween itself, things are looking good. Every one of the small number of guests he invited has showed up. Good – they will all be squashed close together on their makeshift chairs. Monty and Jasper have plenty of moonshine prepared. Right this moment, he can see Monroe encouraging Raven to sit in a most particular seat.

Excellent.

Clarke is the last but one to arrive. Of course she is – Miller planned it that way, told her slightly the wrong time. There's only one seat left, a log that is not quite big enough for two.

Harper points it out to her, and she sits without apparent distress.

And then Bellamy arrives, the last of all. Perfectly prompt at the time Miller specifically asked him to show. If his friend thought that eight-ten exactly was an odd time to start a party, he never mentioned it, so Miller figures it's all good.

Now for things to get really interesting.

"Bellamy, man. Hey. Sorry – most of the seats are taken. It looks like you'll have to squash up with Clarke there." He points, waits with baited breath. This is the moment that could make or break his plan.

It works. Bellamy just nods, apparently unconcerned, and heads straight for Clarke's side. There's a little awkward shuffling as they arrange themselves, sure, but neither of them seems to actually object to sharing personal space.

Well of course they don't. They're in love with each other, even if they're still in denial about it. That's the reason for this whole elaborate charade.

"So what happens at a party for... _Halloween_?" Harper asks brightly.

"Lots of things. Drinking, games, fun." Miller is keen to answer quickly, doesn't want the guests of honour to have too much time to notice she said _party_.

"Games?" Bellamy asks, looking about him with a frown, as if asking where all the props and tools for these games are hiding.

"Drinking games." Jasper supplies.

There's a pause. Bellamy looks alarmed. Clarke looks surprisingly eager. Miller dives in to smooth over the silence.

"And because it's Halloween we tell ghost stories." He explains.

"Ghost stories?" Monty sounds less than keen on this development.

"Yeah. Halloween was a great holiday, all about spirits and witches. So we tell ghost stories."

Raven snorts. "Who exactly tells these stories? Does Bellamy here look like he's into ghost stories?"

Bellamy bristles, turns towards her. But Clarke stops him with a hand on his knee. Huh. That's promising.

Again, Miller fills the silence. "I'll tell them. I like ghost stories." He admits, eyes lowered. "Always found them pretty cool, actually."

"Yeah?" Harper sounds intrigued. "Sounds good. Go for it."

He hesitates just a moment. His plan depends on Bellamy and Clarke drinking enough to lower their inhibitions, as well as sitting close and clinging to each other when the ghost stories get underway. He should fix that before he gets started.

"Jasper – another round? Bellamy looks thirsty."

"I just got here." Bellamy protests, frowning.

And yet again, Clarke's hand lands on his knee. Yet again, he falls silent at her gesture. Really, this is going rather well.

Drinks are refilled, and Miller gets started on his ghost stories. He starts out with an old one that he loved as a kid – a murderer from the Ark, floated yet still stalking the halls. He moves onto airlocks mysteriously left open, doors supernaturally locked closed. And these are the stories he always loved as a kid, but he senses he's losing his audience a little. Raven is frowning into her drink. Jasper looks thoroughly bored. Harper is trying to smile encouragingly at him, but she's about the only one.

And there is absolutely no sign at all of Bellamy and Clarke clinging to each other in terror.

Maybe ghost stories about the Ark aren't scary on the ground, he wonders. Maybe they've all lived through too many horrors that are real and tangible and current to be frightened by ethereal monsters from a world they no longer inhabit.

He changes it up.

"You know Nyko told me about a young woman who haunts the waterfall just over the hill." He offers. It's both a total lie and a complete change of theme, but it has his audience looking up at him with renewed interest.

"Haunts a _waterfall_?" Raven asks. "Come off it."

"No. It's true." He protests. It's not true at all, but he figures he's lying for the greater good, here. If a few spurious ghost stories can drive Bellamy and Clarke into each other's arms, then the end will justify the means.

"Why would she haunt a waterfall?" Clarke asks calmly, as if this is a logic puzzle rather than an anecdote about the supernatural.

"She died there. Drowned by her lover." He improvises rapidly. "They were getting it on, you know. And they were playing about a bit in the water, trying to spice things up. But this one girl, she held the other under the water for too long. She drowned. Tragic accident. And now she haunts the waterfall."

There's a beat of silence. He looks around the circle, takes in the various bemused expressions he can see in the firelight. Clarke looks horrified. Bellamy looks slightly concussed. Raven is glaring at him, as if asking what the hell he thinks he's doing.

Right. Yes. Maybe a tragic tale of accidental kinky death is not the kind of thing he needs, here. Maybe that's not likely to inspire romantic thoughts.

"OK. Let me tell you about some of the other things that haunt this forest at night. There's -"

"Please don't." Octavia huffs.

"What?"

"Please don't tell us. That was awful. We should go -"

"I don't mind staying to hear another one." Clarke offers.

Huh. That's interesting. Because Clarke definitely hasn't been enjoying the stories so far, but apparently she is enjoying _something_ enough to want to stay put here.

Miller grins, calls for another round of moonshine. Monty obliges, fills everyone's cups to the brim.

Meanwhile, Miller fishes desperately for something to say. This needs to be a good one. It needs to be scary, needs to encourage a but of cuddling and clinging. But preferably without anyone dying at the hands of their lover. And it needs to be relatable, genuinely scary for this time and place.

Yes. He thinks he has it.

"Let me tell you what happened to me when I was on night watch last week."

Yes. That's a good opening. It has those of the group who work as guards looking up in interest. But more than that, it has their significant others looking up in burgeoning fear. Monty looks nervous, clings tighter to Harper's side. Clarke's glance flickers between Miller and Bellamy, as if asking whether he's in danger whenever he stands post in the hours of darkness.

Excellent. He can work with this. He draws breath to continue.

"It can be eerie taking the night watch, can't it guys? All those strange movements in the forest. You see shadows that might be human or animal, but don't look like any human or animal you've ever seen before. And the noises – the noises can be creepy, can't they?"

Monroe nods sagely, as if recalling untold horrors. Excellent. He makes a mental note that he really needs to buy her a drink for her helpful acting if they pull this off.

"You always say you don't mind the night watch." Clarke hisses to Bellamy, frowning. "You say -"

"He's just being brave. Come on, you know him well enough by now. He doesn't want you to worry about him." Miller supplies.

Clarke nods, considering. Bellamy looks like he's on the point of calling Miller out on his utter bullshit, so he swiftly continues with his story.

"Anyway, so I'm on night watch and I hear this sound. Not the usual snapping twigs of the small animals – this is something much bigger. Heavy footsteps – I can hear them from the watch tower. So I know I need to head out and have a look. What if it's something dangerous?"

He takes a moment to consider his audience. Raven looks slightly less scornful. Bellamy has an arm around Clarke's shoulders.

That's it. That's victory – or half way to it. _Bellamy has an arm around Clarke's shoulders_ , and Miller knows he simply needs to plough on and make this a good one.

"The noises get louder. There are these snuffling sounds, not far into the trees. And then – then there's this loud sort of howling noise? Kind of like the wolves I remember from TV shows from Earth."

"And you thought _I know what, I'll walk straight out there after it_." Raven supplies helpfully.

"Yeah. I did what any guard would do. We're all about protecting Arkadia, you know?"

Yes. That's worked. Clarke's leaning closer in to Bellamy, now, her hand gripped tight on his knee. That's not behaviour Miller usually associates with Clarke, but maybe this story really is hitting home.

Or maybe she's just been waiting a long time for an excuse to jump into Bellamy's arms.

"So I keep walking, and I start to find footprints." Miller explains, realising that he should probably have invented some footprints sooner. Screw it. He's sure everyone's too drunk to care about continuity errors right now. All that matters is this sounds like something that could feasibly happen to a guard on night watch, and pushes Clarke to make a big old romantic fuss of Bellamy.

"What were the footprints like?" Monroe prompts. God, he really does owe her a drink.

"Huge." He says, because of course they were. "Massive. Size of my head at least. With four toes and these enormous claw marks. There were some claw marks in the trees as well – bark ripped to shreds and everything."

"So you followed the tracks, because you're brave." Jasper reiterates.

"Just being a good guard, you know? You'd do the same, wouldn't you, Bellamy?"

He shrugs and nods, at the same time. They all know he would, and there's no sense denying it. Self preservation is not exactly his greatest talent. Clarke clings to him ever closer, reaches up to whisper something in his ear that the rest of them cannot hear.

Miller presses his advantage. "It gets louder and louder, the closer I get. More growling, really loud. I know it's just in front of me, now. It's right there over the crest of the next hill. And then I get there and – BAM!"

Monroe shrieks, more or less convincingly. Raven rolls her eyes. Bellamy's arm twitches around Clarke's shoulders.

"It turns out they were the footprints of a gigantic hound. A gigantic _glowing_ hound. Right there, in the hollow in front of me, staring right back at me."

"Glowing? How do you mean _glowing_?" Harper prompts.

"Ooh, you know. Glowing." He's enjoying this way too much now, as he watches Bellamy stroke his thumb up and down Clarke's arm. He really shouldn't torture them, but he figures a little more tension can only increase the chances of them actually getting together after this, rather than backing away as they always seem to do whenever they look close to figuring things out.

"Glowing?" Monroe gasps.

"Glowing. Sort of pale and... ghostly. Just the kind of thing you expect to see at Halloween. And it had these demonic red eyes and it was staring me down, so close I could practically feel its hot breath on my face." He stops there, aware that he might be getting carried away.

"And what happened next?" Monty asks. "How did you get out of there alive?"

Crap. What did happen next? How did he get out of there alive?

"He called Sherlock Holmes." Bellamy supplies, voice light. "Come on you guys, it's a famous story. _The Hound of the Baskervilles_? Some guy painted his dog and had it run around a moor."

There's a silence. Miller is beyond frustrated. He should have realised that Bellamy would know all the old Earth tales, that there was no way of pulling this off. So much for his plan. So much for making his two good friends happy. So much for -

Hang on. Clarke's still got that hand on Bellamy's leg. Except it's not on his knee, now – it seems to have crept rather higher, under the cover of darkness and the influence of moonshine. And Bellamy is showing no sign at all of moving the arm that is wrapped tight around her.

Maybe this hasn't been such a failure after all.

"You like Sherlock Holmes?" Clarke asks Bellamy. Her voice is quiet, but in the tense silence it carries easily over the whole hushed _gathering_.

"Yeah. I know it's not Greek mythology but – it has a lot of the same elements, doesn't it? All your stock heroes and villains and so on."

"I like them too. When I decided I wanted to be a doctor I read them all because I figured that making deductions was kind of like making a diagnosis."

"Was it?"

She laughs. "Not much, it turns out. But they're good stories."

Miller waits with baited breath. He's pretty sure they shouldn't all be listening to this moment. In fact, he should probably turn and start a staged conversation with Monroe. But somehow he is powerless to look away – he's been waiting to see these two work it out for so long, and he honestly feels that he's about to see that happen before his very eyes.

There's a pause. Bellamy looks down at Clarke. Clarke looks up at Bellamy.

And then Bellamy speaks. "I actually have _A Study in Scarlet_ back at my place if you want to come over and read for a bit. I know it's not the best, but -"

"It's good." Clarke says, too quickly. "Great. I'd love to."

So that's that. They stand up, and walk back to Bellamy's room hand in hand to _do some reading_.

Miller waits until they're out of earshot before he permits himself to laugh at the obvious euphemism. Raven is less polite – she starts sniggering before they're ten yards away. And Octavia is giggling too, looking somewhere between disgusted and fond.

It's Monroe who really finishes the job, of course. She takes a swig of moonshine, carefully nonchalant, and says what they're all thinking.

"Great party, this. Pass me another drink, will you?"

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
